Requiem For A Captive Soul
by Screaming Ferret
Summary: Ex FBI Clarice Starling in Suicide Shock!


  
AN/ Warning: This is one of those oh-so-cheerful (not) things that I sometimes come up with. I do have a tendency to go over the top with angst and other depressing stuff, so do tell me if you think it's OTT. Oh yeah, this could be taken as a 'part two' of 'Looking into the Abyss' although I didn't write it as such. Do have fun, kids.   
  
Disclaimer: Hannibal and Clarice belong to the unfairly talented Thomas Harris. I'm not making any money out of this whatsoever.  
  
REQUIEM FOR A CAPTIVE SOUL.  
  
Dr Lecter sits in the sun outside a cafe in downtown Paris, perusing a copy of the American tabloid, 'The National Tattler' and sipping a glass of fine Batard Montrachet. At present, he is Dr Henri Lazare, a retired medical doctor who has returned home to France after many years of living and working in America.  
  
Dr Lecter lays the paper down to turn the page, as his new hand is still stiff. The page turned, a headline catches his eye:  
  
'EX FBI CLARICE STARLING IN SUICIDE SHOCK'  
  
The monster's eyes widen in shock and his hand knocks the wine glass to the floor, wine puddling in a crimson lake at his feet. A concerned waiter comes over, but Dr Lecter does not hear, or even see him. He sees only Clarice.  
  
Clarice Starling at their first meeting, wearing an absurdly determined, earnest expression. Her steely blue-grey eyes intent on his face as she lied to him. Clarice running through the park with the deer, Clarice at his table.  
  
His eyes skip back to the headline. Surely he was mistaken... No. She is dead. Numbing with shock, Dr Lecter reads on:  
  
"Ex Special Agent Clarice Starling was found dead at her home in Arlington, West Virginia, late yesterday morning. She took her own life with a gun belonging to dead friend John Brigham, a fellow agent killed in the Felicina Fish Market Massacre two years ago, where Starling herself shot to death five people, including drug-manufacturing mother Evelda Drumgo.  
Details of the suicide have not been released, but Ms Starling left a suicide note pinned to a stuffed lamb, the significance of which is unknown. The note, written to the lethal madman, Dr Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter, reveals her true feelings for the monster.  
  
'Dr Lecter,  
This is the end. I cannot walk this path any further. It has taken me to places any sane person would not dare to go. But I'm not sure if I can really qualify for sanity anymore. Sanity has no place in your world, and I'm afraid that's where I've been stuck. For over a year I've been waiting for you, for a letter or for anything. For a respite, a sign of hope that it might not have ended there on the Chesapeake shore. Waiting for my death at your hands, I suppose. I figured you'd want revenge, but instead you've forgotten. That's a terrible thing, the worst thing you could have done to me. Forgotten me. I can't forget you, but why did I think you'd remember me? I was conceited enough to believe that you would sometimes think of me. I needed that, I think. Anyway, enough about me. How about you? I've read of one or two murders in the news. They had 'Hannibal Lecter' stamped all over them. That always made me smile. How about that, Dr Lecter? I think you've turned me into something like a monster. And killed me without lifting a finger. But I do love you. That's terrible to write, but true. You know it to be so.   
I'm scared, Hannibal. But that's okay, I've been scared before. We all get scared sometimes, don't we? Even you. Yeah, you were scared when you kissed me. Like a high-school kid. Remember that kiss?  
Goodbye,  
Clarice Starling."  
  
Dr Lecter closes his eyes in anguish. His fault. It echoes in the vaults of his memory palace, tearing open the rank, dark oubliettes in his mind. His fault.  
  
When he has composed himself enough to read on, he turns back to the dreadful paper.  
  
"Colleagues say that she was very depressed after the Lecter fiasco of Muskrat Farm. An insider says: "We thought she'd gone over the edge, that Lecter had messed with her mind. She was a little strange before, she was a loner with a smart mouth. After Muskrat Farm she used to erupt if anyone mentioned Lecter's name. Specially if you were 'rude' about him. It was as if she was standing up for him. She spent all her time in her basement room - Hannibal's House, everyone called it. It was a relief when she decided to get out. She needed to get away from Lecter."  
  
Hannibal Lecter cannot hold his anguish in. He begins to sob, quietly at first. Scalding tears drip onto the paper, on to his hands. His fault. In his mind, the stuffed lamb screams in Clarice's voice. 'You have done this to me!' it says, over and over again. He screams too, with unutterable grief and loss. People stare, but he does not care about them. Wracked with sobs, Dr Lecter buries his face in his hands. She is dead and it is his fault. He should have gone to her. He should have written.  
  
Somehow, he managed to get home. Stumbled up the stairs and collapsed on the bed. Hannibal curls into a tight knot of pain, the paper clenched in both fists. He cries for her late into the night. Cries for her, cries for Mischa, cries for himself. Weeping for Clarice Starling, his Clarice, gone forever. He knows he will never see her again. Heaven is barred to him.  
  
Deep in the dark, when Hannibal Lecter has finally fallen asleep, he is visited by nightmares. The lambs are silent for her now, but for him they have just begun to scream.   
  
  
AN/ Short and cheerful, wasn't it? Poor Hannibal. Did you think that I went too OTT? I do, but there you go. It's been hanging around on file paper for months. It was written during a history lesson, like most of my stuff :) I never work. Exams next month, too. I'll probably have to cut down on Internet time. *sighs* It's just not FAIR!  
  
Ta ta,  
Screaming Ferret.   
  
  
  
  



End file.
